Editorial introduction

Abstract

Happy 2022! We here at the journal have a lot to be elated about in the last year, 2021, and so much to be excited about in this new year! One thing we implemented in 2021 were journal-related honours and awards. When I became the Editor-inChief (EIC) in 2018 one thing I wanted to explore was the idea of having an annual best article award and a top reviewer of the year award, however, the timing was a bit premature as this was an idea that had not been historically explored at the journal of Sexual and Relationship Therapy (SRT). Coming into my role as EIC, I had just served as the Virtual Issues Editor for the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (JMFT) from 2015 to 2018. In this role I served with Dr. Fred Piercy, who was the EIC of JMFT, who in 2013 implemented the JMFT Best Article of the Year Award (Piercy, 2016), and the JMFT Reviewer of the Year Award. I saw how meaningful these honours were to not only the journal’s authors and reviewers, but also to the readers of the journal, as well as to the overall field of couple and family therapy. So, I thought when, and if, I ever had the opportunity to be an EIC of a top journal I would hope to implement similar awards. Thus, I am elated that this is happening for our authors who print published in our journal in 2021, as well as for our reviewers, who served in this capacity in 2021. So, of the 81 people who served as reviewers in the year of 2021 (all of which are listed in this issue on a standalone page of appreciation), we had two people who reviewed more submissions than anyone else and in the timeliest manner. Hence, these two reviewers are being honoured with the very first Sexual and Relationship Therapy Reviewer of the Year Awards. One is Sarah Hechter, MS., LMFT. Sarah is a counselor at DuPage County Health Department in the state of Illinois. The second is Candice Maier, PhD., LMFT. Candice is an Assistant Professor in the Counseling, Rehabilitation, and Human Services Department and the Clinical Director of the Clinical Services Center at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. The work of these two outstanding reviewers was instrumental in the journal’s success last year and for this we are deeply grateful. Of the 27 scholarly articles published in print in the journal of Sexual and Relationship Therapy in 2021, eight were selected to be considered for the first Sexual and Relationship Therapy Best Article of the Year Award in the journal’s history. These eight articles were chosen, because of all those articles published in print in 2021, these articles had the highest citation count, most views, most downloads, and/or highest Altmetric scores. Additional considerations in the selection of the articles to be considered for this award included the: timely nature of the content, overall quality of the writing and/or methodological approach, applicability and